Therapy
by Cthulhu On Rye
Summary: Another failed speedrent attempt. Mark gets conned into going to see a therapist. No pairings mentioned or even hinted at, more of a Mark study than anything else. Unbetad


It hadn't even been two minutes before Mark knew he didn't like the room. The place was dressed to look like a living room, plush couches in one corner, a bookshelf and desk in another. There was a detailed, Persian rug in the middle, but then again every fancy carpet looked Persian to him. Panning his camera around the room he sighed. The effort was there, the thought to try and make the place look safe and inviting with it's dim lights and warm colors, but it just fell short and instead of giving feelings of comfort, it only projected a false relaxation.

A woman sat across from him, watching as he took in his surroundings and smiling patiently. "Like it?" She asked, seeming genuinely curious.

Mark shrugged, "Not really, you tried too hard." The lens focused on the woman, his new therapist. Joanne had suggested he viset her after a talk at the Life. Mark didn't see the point, he thought he was just fine and as far as he knew so did the rest of his friends. She had insisted however, telling him that she would pay for the appointment and any future ones he wanted to make. In the end that wasn't what got him to go, it was the promise that if he didn't like the woman, Joanne would let the issue go.

She cocked her head to the side, already scribbling something into a small, yellow pad. "What do you mean?"

"Well," he began, zooming in on the pad, "it's...it's too fake. You just put too much effort into trying to make it all nice and warm. It's almost like you're trying to fool your patients into being comfortable."

"That's not the point at all, we just want to make sure everyone's relaxed when they come in here." She shrugged, twirling the pen between her thumb and forefinger.

Turning away, he began filming a lamp that rested against a dying plant. "How much longer?"

Eyeing her watch, the therapist sighed, "An hour. So Mark, let's talk."

The camera panned back to her, "We're already talking Gabrielle."

Gabrielle smiled while once again writing something in the pad. "True, but let's talk about something other the decor of my office. Let's talk about the camera."

He peered at her without the aid of the camera. Finally something that caught his interest. "Alright, what d'you wanna know?"

She shrugged, "Anything, how about who gave it to you?"

"Oh," He slid back behind the lens. "My sister Cindy. She said she found it at some garage sale."

"Well that was kind of her."

A shrug, "I suppose. A few weeks after that she moved out of the house, said she couldn't take my mother anymore. I wouldn't have cared if I didn't have four more years before I could do the same."

Gabrielle raised an eyebrow, "Really now, was your mother abusive?"

Mark gave a harsh laugh, "On the contrary," he replied, "she handled us with kid gloves, made everyone else do the same thing too. Having the camera gave me an excuse to get out though."

"From your house?"

"From Scarsdale in general. It took me a bit to really get into film, I mean I liked it and all, but it wasn't...It wasn't my passion, just my escape." He didn't even bother to look, already hearing the scratching of her pen against the paper.

She nodded, "So do you still film to escape Mark, or is it just passion now?"

He gave a shrug, "It's passion mostly, I mean I guess I said it wrong before. It was _always_ passion, there were just some other benefits too."

"But are those benefits still there?" She pressed. The pen had fallen from her hand and rested at the edge of the pad. "Is it pure passion that keeps you filming and nothing else?"

Sighing, he set the camera aside. "It's...It helps me not to feel," he stated flatly. "It's a way to see everything around me but not...not have to get really involved, you know? It's just like watching a movie."

The therapist nodded, "I understand."

Mark snorted, he highly doubted that she understood anything, all she did was just sit there and scratch out nonsense on that stupid pad of hers. "Look, as much as you'd like to think that, I know you don't. You can't understand when you don't even know what I'm not trying to feel."

She gave a nod, "This is true, why not tell me then? Tell me what's so bad that you have to hide behind a camera to be able to cope with it."

Another bitter laugh, "More then you'll ever know. Look," Mark stood, picking up his camera and giving the woman a frustrated stare. "I appreciate this, what you've tried to do, but I'm fine. I know my faults and I, quite frankly, like them. Thank you for your time though, it was...interesting."

With that Mark left the office, not exactly satisfied, but pleased to get out of the false sense of comfort and back into cold arms of the city.


End file.
